


A Thing with Feathers

by SalParadiseLost



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Animal Transformation, Cas the Dino is Cute, Castiel is a Dinosaur in this One, Crack, Dean is In Over His Head, Dino!Cas, Dinosaurs, Fandom needs more Dinosaurs, Fluff, Fluff and Crack, Gen, M/M, Real Life Dinosaurs, Sam Is So Done, Slight crossover with Jurassic World, Utahraptors, and awesome, yes - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2018-12-15 11:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11805273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SalParadiseLost/pseuds/SalParadiseLost
Summary: Dean was pissed. First, their angel wakes him up from what was probably the best nap of his life and then, he dumps them into the middle of Nowhere. And now he shows up looking like a freakin Chicken of Death. Wonderful.The one where Sam and Dean get lost in a jungle, realise that their best friend is a raptor, and somehow have to stop a "primordial key" from unlocking Hell on Earth.Yeah, it's a crack fic, but it's a lot of fun.





	1. Jungle Fever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright guys, this one is pretty much pure crack. Basically I just wanted a reason to turn Cas into a dinosaur and have the boys freak out about it. I love it like that. Sorry, but not sorry. Enjoy!

      “Dude, why the hell are we even here? I fucking hate camping.” Dean pushed through yet another patch of goddamn leaves, only to get hit in the face when it came back with revenge. Behind him, Sammy sounded like he was having the time of his life and kept going on and on about extinct species and the “recreation of genetic integrity”. Dean, for one, didn’t care. All he knew was that a damn plant then is still a damn plant now, and these plants hated him.

  
      “For it to be camping we would actually have to be setting up for the night, but that may have to happen soon.” Sam looked up into the canopy and tried to gauge where the sun was. He couldn’t really tell because of how thick the tree top was, but he was sure that the light had slowly been getting dimmer. He and his brother had been here for a few hours now and it made sense that it would be getting dark soon.

  
       Dean growled and used his demon-killing blade to hack at another plant. “Where the hell is Cas? I’m getting sick on this jungle.” He said as he slapped at a mosquito that had landed on him. Great. Now he was going to probably get malaria or some other fun exotic disease. His thin flannel certainly wasn’t doing him many favours when it came to acting as a bug shield. He wished that he had one of those Jungle Jim safari suits right about now, anything to get these damn bugs to stop biting him. Or bug spray at least. If only Cas had given them some warning before carting them off into the Jungle Book.

  
        In the distance, a bird called and was answered by another, which sent another into song. Dean paused in his trek because, all the sudden, sound reverberated throughout the rainforest and echoed off the trees. The brothers were entirely enveloped with creepy bird cries and, suddenly, Dean felt incredibly small. All the fierce panic that he had been feeling, but also stubbornly ignoring, crawled its way across his spine and made him want to run and hide.

  
        Sam had also stopped and a quick look to his face told Dean that he was thinking the same thing.

  
        The incredibly eerie birdcalls eventually rounded down, diving the jungle into intense silence again. Dean wasn’t sure, which he preferred.

  
        Sam took a few steps until he was right at Dean’s back. He couldn’t blame the kid, something about knowing how far they were from civilisation disturbed him and sent every one of his primitive primate instincts into overdrive. Sam’s voice was small and quiet when he spoke.

  
        “Dean, where are we?”

  
         He, of course, didn’t have an answer to that. A few hours ago, Cas had stumbled into their room, looking more torn up than Dean had seen him in a while. He was rambling off something about a “primordial key” and a “disturbance in the force” (okay, maybe he didn’t say that, but it sounded like it). The brothers had tried to get some answers out of him, but he ignored then and commanded that they needed to pack bags quickly. They did because if working with an angel taught them anything it was that angels aren’t easy freaked out, so if they say run, you goddamn run. Cas, though, had conveniently left out the part where he would be dumping them in the middle of Nowhere.

  
         He had told them he’d be “back to fetch them” (which really annoyed Dean, because he wasn’t some kid you could leave at day-care). He didn’t exactly say when though, and that was beginning to freak Dean out.

  
         As the hours passed, his brain kept supplying him with helpful images of dying out in the middle of the jungle. Running out of food and water, getting eaten by a tiger, accidently stepping into quicksand; at this point, all of those were on the table. He also couldn’t help thinking that maybe this was Cas’ plan all along. That their friendship really didn’t mean anything and maybe the brothers had done something to tick him off for the last time. Dean wouldn’t even know what he had done, if that was the case. It wasn’t like they had forgotten the angel’s birthday, and wouldn’t it have been easier to just dump them in the middle of the rainforest without supplies. Unless Cas wanted to torture them for a few days…

  
        The thought made Dean’s stomach churn and nausea swept over him. He turned to look back at Sam just to make sure that his brother was there with him. Sam looked exceptionally less excited to be here now, and more like he wanted to shit his pants.

  
        “Hey Cas, please tell me you got your ears on because we’re getting pretty-” What was he going to say? angry? scared shitless? “- annoyed that you left us in a jungle.” He paused, and eventually said “And it’s going to get dark pretty soon.” He ignored how small and desperate that last part sounded, even though the voice was only in his head.

  
        “Ok, Sammy, I just sent out a prayer for Cas to get his feathery ass down here soon, so we shouldn’t be out here for much longer.” Dean turned to fully face his brother, but noticed that Sam wasn’t looking at him. Instead he was fixed on to a spot to Dean’s left, eyes wide and panicked.

  
        “Dean” he said quietly, but with fear rippling through his voice. “I think something’s out there.”

  
         Immediately, everything that Dean had been trying desperately to ignore rose in his throat and he had to force himself not to make a sound. He looked toward where Sam was staring at, trying to see what Sam got a glimpse of. The sun was setting though and the absence of light was beginning to cast long shadows into the foliage, making it hard to tell what was real and what was not. Dean stepped forward though to move silently in front of his brother and moved his hand to his gun. When he reached down, instead of feeling familiar metal, the gun wasn’t there.

  
        “Son of a…” He started, but quickly stopped himself. Sam looked at him, puzzled, then scared when he realised that neither of them had any firearms. Dean wanted to panic, but swallowed most of it down and just gripped his knife for all that it was worth. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sam also pull out a knife. He scanned to jungle trying to find someplace where they could hide or have a slight advantage, but nothing was apparent. Everything was just fucking forest and here, Dean and Sam, were the prey.  
Suddenly, he heard it. The sound was soft and he recognised it as breathing, but loud enough to tell him that whatever was hunting him right now was really fucking big and really fucking close. He also heard footsteps, heavy ones that the creature wasn’t even trying to disguise. And they were coming closer.

  
        “Dean, if we don’t” Sam said as he pressed his back against Dean’s to cover their blind spots.  
       

         “Shut up, Sam, we’re going to fight this thing and we’re going to win. Don’t be a baby about it.”  
         

          Amazingly, Sam still found it in himself to snort, but it didn’t sound nearly as controlled as it should. Goddammit, they had survived monsters and demons and anything else the universe had decided to throw at them. They could take down Tony the tiger, easy. Right?  
Dean was about to say something else, but his voice died when a scaly snout started to emerge from the foliage. It was a pale blue-grey colour and lined with some of the wickedest teeth that Dean had ever seen. The rest of the animal came stepping forward and Dean felt ice run through his veins all at once because following that snout was a dinosaur. A real-life fucking dinosaur.

         Dean recognised the thing from those famous “theme park gone wrong” movies, Jurassic Park, which had been released a few years earlier and “based on a true story”. Sam had criticised the films saying that a real-life velociraptor would have been about the size of a turkey. Now, Dean was staring the monster in the face and he could tell this nightmare, yeah, it was bigger than a turkey.

         The dinosaur (he still couldn’t get his mind around it) stood about the same height as Dean, maybe even a bit bigger. It was a steel grey colour with darker blue markings running down its spine and to its tail. The thing was also covered in a fine coat of feathers, which was kinda weird because Dean thought that dinosaurs were lizards. Dean wasn’t paying that much attention to that though, he was more focused on the absolutely horrifying set of claws that were easily the size of his entire hand. Not to mention the serrated teeth that were fixed into a jaw the size of his chest.

         The creature slowly took a step forward and made a clicking noise that Dean was sure meant “prepare to be eaten now humans”. It didn’t take much figuring out to know that there was no way that they were going to win this battle. He only hoped that he could get Sammy out alive and that the monster would kill him quickly and painlessly.

         But there was no way that he was going to go down without a fight. The raptor took another step, but this time Dean lunged and stabbed the thing on its side. The knife wasn’t nearly long enough to cause any lasting damage, but at least Dean startled the dinosaur because it flinched and scrambled a few steps back.

         “Yeah, you back away, you son of a bitch. We’re not going to make this easy for you.” He sounded confident, but he sickeningly realised that he was out of weapons. His demon knife was still stuck in the raptor’s side and his back-up one was tucked into his backpack. That one probably wasn’t going to do him any good now, because he was sure that the dinosaur wasn’t going to politely wait for Dean to pull out another weapon.

         “Dean, look.” Sam’s voice jolted Dean from his thoughts, and he focussed back on the dino. The raptor had turned a bit away and pulled something out of the bush, keeping it in its jaws. At first, Dean didn’t recognise it, but then sudden it hit him and caused his innards to painfully constrict. It was a trench coat, but not any trench coat. It was Cas’ trench coat.

          “That thing fucking ate Cas.” Dean couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t. The guy was an angel and angels don’t just get eaten. They’re fucking warriors of heaven, then could stand up to a little bit of lizard teeth, right? Right?

           Dean was stunned and felt like he couldn’t move. The raptor just stared at them, probably trying to decide which of them would taste better after “steak de angel”. Part of Dean was screamed for the stupid overgrown lizard to just eat them already and get it over with, but the dinosaur didn’t move. In fact, it hadn’t made any threatening acts towards them at all.

           The raptor slowly bent and placed the trench coat on the floor. It paused, as if it was waiting for something, then nudged the coat towards Dean with its snout. This caused Dean to look at the coat more closely. Amazingly, it looked clean. Sure, it had dirt on it from being dragged around a forest, but it was free on any blood. If Cas really had been attacked and killed while wearing this, it would be bound to have at least a tear in it, right?

           Slowly, the lizard moved the coat even closer to Dean, this time accompanying the push with a trilling little warble, which sounded like a pathetic attempt at a birdsong. The monster’s eyes, which now Dean realised were a deep, intense blue, constantly flicked between Dean and the coat. The raptor even began lowering itself, making itself seem as small as possible, as it steadily brought the coat to Dean.

           Eventually, the trench coat was within arms-length and Dean snatched it up before the raptor could get its dirty jaws on it again. Immediately, the dinosaur backed off and just stood there staring at the brothers.

          “What’s going on here?” Dean said finally when he couldn’t take the staring match any longer. Sam seemed just as confused and only shrugged when his brother looked at him for an explanation.

            The dinosaur, on the other hand, began making constant little bird noises and twitching impatiently. It kept looking between the coat and the brothers until it seemed to give up on that line of thought. Then, suddenly, it straightened up.

            Seeing the thing rise to its full height nearly caused Dean to run away screaming, especially when the raptor raised its arm and spread out its black arm feather things. Arm feather things that looked suspiciously like wings.

            Wait a minute.

            Wings. Trench coat. Blue eyes.

            The gears turned viciously in Dean’s head drawing up one name. He was about to say it, but then Sam’s voice cut through.

           “Cas?”


	2. Dinosaur of the Lord

            The dinosaur quickly nodded and put its, no, _his_ arms down. He lowered himself again, leaning towards the ground, but gazed up to the brothers with two big blue eyes.

            “What, I don’t, but, how?” sputtered Sam as he tried to figure out what the hell was even going on. Dean was trying to do that too, but he was taking the more shell-shocked approach and was just blankly staring at the Cas dinosaur.

            Cas chirped an answer, but that didn’t do them any good because neither spoke dino. He grimaced at that, his scaly lips turning into a deep frown that looked so very Cas-like.

            “You can’t speak?” said Sam, even though all the chirps and twittering made the answer pretty obviously. Cas shook his head in response to Sam, but then nervously flicked his eyes to Dean. Cautiously, he went to the other hunter, trying to look as non-threatening as possible, which was pretty hard considering his teeth were the size of human fingers. He made a cooing noise from the back of his throat, which made Dean think of an oversized toothy dove.

            Dean shook his head, snapping himself out of whatever surprised state he had managed to get himself into. But who could blame him, it’s not every day that you see your best friend step out the bushes looking like a freaking dinosaur. Weren’t those things extinct anyways? He rubbed his head with the back of his palm and looked back to his brother and Cas the dinosaur, both of whom were waiting for some kind of response.

“So I guess you’re not going to eat us? If you are, Cas, I suggest going with Sam. He’s organic.”

            Cas squinted and did that head tilt thing that he always does. Now that he was practically a death chicken, the movement was all the more birdlike. Sam, of course, made one of his patented bitch-faces.

            Something about those two things together made Dean start laughing hysterically.

            Dino Cas snorted in a way that Dean clearly understood as “Dean, now is not the time to be laughing”. Sam, on the other hand, had his face crunched up in concern because Dean’s laughing was beginning to sound less amused and more panicky.

            “Dean” he said moving to his brother and gripping his arms. “Dean, are you alright?”

            Dean kept laughing because he found he couldn’t stop. Underneath him the world was shaking. Or maybe it was just him shaking? Was Sam talking to him?

            “Listen to me, Dean. You’re alright. I’m alright. Cas is alright. Everything is alright”

            “Cas is a dinosaur, Sammy, he was going to eat us.” He said in between laughs.

            “Cas is not going to eat us.” Sam said firmly. “So just breath.”

             Eventually, he did and the hysterical laughing stopped. Sam was right. Even though Cas, looked a little funny, everything was as okay as it ever gets in their shitty lives. He had almost gotten eaten before. This wasn’t his first time being he was on the menu, but still it was one of the only times where he knew that there wasn’t a way out. Had there actually been a real man-eater in front of them, Sam and Dean would have been passing through a digestive tract right about now.

            Once he had gotten a hold on himself again, he looked at Cas. The angel had his head turned away from the Winchesters and looked like he was picking at something on his side. Every once in a while, he made a frustrated huff.

            Great, now the damn angel was preening through his feathers. Like the situation couldn’t get any weird. Eventually Cas noticed Dean staring at him and he immediately straightened to attention.

            “Hey Cas, it’s about time you came and picked us up.” He said, letting only a little bit of annoyance creep into his voice.

            Dean didn’t know how he did it, but Cas suddenly looked very ashamed and eyed the ground like a scolded puppy.

            “You mind telling us why you’ve decided to get on the floor and do the dinosaur?” Cas made a half-growl, which absolutely did not send a shiver racing down Dean’s spine. “Right, you can’t talk. Ain’t that just a freaking picnic?” The raptor made an irritated noise and the little shit rolled his eyes at Dean.

            “Uh, guys, I don’t mean to interrupt your lover’s squabble, but it’s getting dark.” Said Sam. “So Cas, can your mojo us out of here already?” Both hunters looked expectantly to the angel, but he just shook his head no.

            “Why not?” snapped Dean and he was met with a reptilian glare. “You can’t can you?” the angel shook his head again. “Well this just keeps on getting better and better.” He muttered under his breath.

            Sam sighed. “Lay off him Dean, I’m sure he has a very good explanation for all of this. He can’t speak right now, and I’m sure that’s just as frustrated for him as it is for us.” Cas nodded and made an agitated sound accompanied by a full body shake.

            “So we need to find a place to set up camp for the night. Not here, because the ground is too mushy. Cas, do you know someplace we can go?” Sam said. Cas made a quick chirp and turned around, narrowly missing Dean’s head with his big ass tail. He stalked into the forest, looking just like one of those National Geographic programmes, and disappeared within a few seconds.

            The brothers hitched up their backpacks and followed Cas. The terrain wasn’t any easier than before, but at least this time they weren’t as worried about something jumping out and eating them. Dean was pretty sure that Cas could take your run of the mill tiger no matter what he looked like. That, of course, didn’t stop the plants from taking their revenge, he didn’t even have his knife to hack away at them.

            Wait a second, where was his knife? He hastily patted down his pockets and his waist belt, but it wasn’t there. The last time he’ had it was when he thought Cas was going to eat them and he stuck it in…

            Oh.

            Sure enough, when he looked at Cas’ side, he saw the knife handle sticking up like a particularly gruesome flag. Then he realised that Cas hadn’t been preening his feathers earlier, he had been trying to get the knife out of his side and failing to reach it. Yeah, the knife wasn’t long enough to damage anything absolutely essential, but Dean didn’t doubt that it _hurt._

            Suddenly, all the anger and annoyance that Dean had been building up towards Cas, disappeared and left a hole of guilt. He had hurt Cas. He had hurt Cas and didn’t even stop to ask if he was alright. He just left Cas in pain. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it. The first thing that he should have done was make sure that Cas was okay, not have some kind of hysterical laughing fit. Then he had ignored it and just snapped at Cas, blaming him for something that was clearly out of his control. Good fucking job, Winchester.

            Suddenly, Cas made a barking noise and turned to the brothers. He used his head to motion to a patch of land where they could set up camp. It wasn’t a clearing exactly, because it really wasn’t even that big. It was more of an extended break in the trees, but thankfully it was dry and Dean was pretty sure they could get a fire going.

            “Yeah, this will work Cas, thanks.” Said Sam and he immediately went about moving the larger sticks and rocks so that they could have a place to lay down. He also began gathering the smaller pieces of wood into a pile so that he could spark a flame.

            Any other time Dean would have helped his brother or at least made fun of him for looking like such a boy scout, but this time, he hung back staying near Cas. He took a few steps forward and found himself face-to-face with a prehistoric snout that should have went extinct a million years ago.

            “Hey Cas,” he said with his voice low.

            The angel murmured a response and very vaguely he could hear the cadence of a “hello Dean”.

            The hunter couldn’t help the small smile and looked Cas in the eye. This was the first time that he had actually really looked at Cas in this form and now that he was sure that the dinosaur wasn’t a threat, he could really appreciate it.

            For one thing, everything about the raptor’s body screamed power. He could practically trace the large muscles in the dinosaur, but despite them Cas still managed to look perfectly streamline. The feathers were surprising, and now, as he studied them, he realised that the sort of shimmered every time Cas moved. They rippled all across his body, but were the thickest on his tail, arms and head. On his tail, they became shorter and fatter, fanning out at the tip. His arms, of course, had those little almost-wings, and the feathers on his head were also longer, forming a crest.

            He had to admit that he never thought he’d ever get to see a living breathing dinosaur and, actually pretty awesome to be standing next to one. Not even modern awesome, more like ‘it amazes you and strikes fear into your heart at the same time’ awesome.

            Tentatively, he reached out, looking at Cas for permission. The angel gave him a quick nod and then he ran his hand down Cas’ feathers. He didn’t expect it, but the feathers were amazingly soft to the touch and Cas’ hide was incredibly warm. He didn’t even know what to compare it to. He stroked the feathers again, trying to get his mind around the fact that he was petting a dinosaur.

            Cas made a happy sounding warble and Dean smiled. “Does that feel good?” The raptor eagerly nodded and leaned into the touch, reminding the hunter of a big, shaggy dog. He continued petting Cas, movements getting a little bolder and longer until suddenly his hand caught against the knife causing it to dig deeper into Cas. The raptor made a surprised hiss in pain and instantly shied away from Dean’s hand, taking a few steps back.

            “Oh shit, Cas, I’m sorry. Come here, let me get that out of you and patch it up alright?” He stretched out a hand beckoning his friend closer.

            For a moment, Dean thought that Cas wouldn’t come any closer to him. The dinosaur eyed him like a spooked animal, but then the raptor moved forward and nudged his nose against his palm. Dean stroked up his face feeling where the scales became feathers and even scratching one of Cas’ eye ridges. The angel seemed to melt against his hand and made a sound that sounded suspiciously like a purr. Looks like this big death chicken was also a big old housecat.

            Eventually, though, he led Cas to where Sam had made a fire and had the dinosaur lay down. In the flickering light, the feathers became absolutely iridescent and rippled hypnotically with each breath. Once Cas was seated, Dean went to his knees and carefully placed his hand on the knife.

            “Alright, Cas were going to do this on three. Ready, one…” He pulled the knife out with a swift yank and Cas yelped. The raptor looked suspiciously at Dean and made a grumbling series of barks and clicks that didn’t sound happy at all.

            “Quit complaining, you scaly baby, the knife’s out and that’s all that matters.” Cas huffed and rapidly struck his heavy toe claw on the ground three times in quick succession.

            “Yeah, I didn’t do it on three, and what are you gonna do about it.” The raptor glared and snorted, settling his head on the ground as Dean poured some alcohol on the wound and began stitching it up.

            Sam was just staring at the two as if both of them had grown an extra head.

            “What?” He said, raising an eyebrow.

            “Nothing, I’m just surprised at how comfortable you are around him.”

            Dean shrugged and turned back to look at the wound. “Well, even though it doesn’t look like him, it’s still Cas. It took me a bit to realise that, but, he’s still just a nerdy, little dude.”

            The angel makes a series of annoyed sounding clicks and nudged against Dean’s shoulder. The hunter just swatted him away and when the angel didn’t stop he thumped him on the nose.

            “Go click at someone who can actually understand you.” Cas just huffed at him in annoyance and put his head back on the ground. He curled towards the fire, making a scaly crescent shape. Dean also settled in and leaned backed against the dinosaur, spreading his arms like Cas was a couch. He half expected the angel to nudge him off or at least grumble, but Cas easily accepted his weight.

            Dean tilted his head back and gazed up, looking for a sky that was just barely visible through the trees. The light from the fire cast weird, moving shadows that danced to some kind of silent jungle beat.

            “This definitely wasn’t what I thought I was going to be doing today.” Dean said to no one in particular. He just hated the silence and the way it made him feel too large and too small at the same time.

            Under him, he felt Cas hum in agreement. The sound vibrated through his body and made Dean’s bone quake. He leaned back further against Cas and lazily began moving his hand in slow circles over Cas’ spine. The feathers were wondrously soft against his fingers, and he absently wondered how paleontologists got their dinosaur so wrong. Feathers were fucking awesome.

            Across the campsite, Sam was sitting on the ground next to his backpack. He had taken out a granola bar and was munching on it as he looked at the fire. Of course, the health nerd would pack freaking granola bars, but forget a gun.

Sam flicked his eyes up to Dean and Cas.

            “I’d be more worried if you did think that this is what you were going to be doing today.” Sam said, even though the humour was absent in his voice. Dean looked at his brother carefully, noticing how tightly he had curled his legs and the way he kept looking at the forest like something was going to jump out and eat him. Damn, his brother was still shaken up from the episode earlier.

            “Sam,” he kept his voice level and plain. He knew that if he sounded too worried Sam might refuse. “Why don’t you come over here? There’s more than enough room on the dino.” He said and he patted a space on Cas’ back just like he was inviting Sam to come sit on a couch.

            His brother looked unsure for a moment, but then he gathered up his backpack and moved to them. He glanced down to Cas like he still half expected him to rear up and attack them, but the angel only nodded, giving permission to come closer. Then Sam settled against the dinosaur next to his brother. It was easy to tell that he was tense, but after a few minutes of silence Dean could practically feel the anxiety drifting out of Sam.

            “What do we do now, Dean?” Sam asked his voice sounding incredibly small compared to the exotic hum that was coming out the surrounding jungle. It really was incredibly eerie because when Dean looked out into that thick foliage he saw no light, only unending wild. He was so glad that him and his brother didn’t have to sleep out here alone. Though he doubts he or Sam would have gotten any sleep.

            He glanced over to his little brother and realized that Sam was looking at him expectantly. Oh, shit he was supposed to answer. “I don’t know” He said quietly. He knew it was lame, but he really didn’t know. He looked up into the forest canopy, seeing the night sky through a space in the branches created by the clearing. The sky was filled with stars, more stars than Dean had ever seen in his life, even though he was only looking through a small gap.

            “We’ll figure it out, though, Sammy.” He said into the dark. The jungle seemed to eat his words, reminding him that this was not the place of civilization. He was the prey here.

            “We always do.” He said and he wasn’t quite sure whether he said it for his brother or himself.


	3. A Walk in the Woods

            He woke up the next morning with his back sore and absolutely no idea where he was. He blinked awake and stirred against the warm whatever-the-hell he was sleeping on, until everything that happened yesterday hit.

            Shit. They were stuck in the middle of nowhere and their best friend was a giant reptile with feathers.

            He groaned, entirely too tired to deal with any of this shit, but his movement seemed to wake the dinosaur that they were sleeping on. Cas slowly opened one of his great blue eyes, hissing at the surrounding light and stubbornly shut it again. He shifted inwards, curling more around the two brothers. Dean grunted when he felt the muscles under him move (because that was super weird), which made the dino open an eye again. He blinked and Dean watched the reptilian pupil adjust in the morning light. It swiveled in its socket until it landed on him. They stared at each other for a moment until Cas he made a quiet trilling noise and lifted his head.

            “Good morning to you too.” He grumbled and reached out a hand to run his fingers through Cas’ soft-looking crest feathers. The raptor hummed at the movement and slipped his eyes closed. The dinosaur dipped his head and pressed against Dean’s palm. Dean laughed lightly at the action and kept petting his best friend.

            “Man, this is weird.” He said nervously, slightly because his hand was coming within inches of teeth that were the size of it and slightly because this was closer than Dean would ever allow himself to come to human Cas. Cas lifted an eye ridge, which looked suspiciously like a raised eyebrow, a question clear on his face. “It’s like you’re a big dog or something.” Dean said in answer.

            Cas snorted in amusement and then slowly smirked at the human.

            Ok, Dean knew that Cas wasn’t actually dangerous, but seeing a horrifically large predatory raptor suddenly give him an evil toothy grin, still made him want to run away screaming. It didn’t help when suddenly those jaws opened and moved towards him. All he could think about was how easily those vicious teeth could sink into him break apart his bones. He could smell the dinosaur’s hot breath of his face and he nearly pissed himself right then and there. For a second, he thought he made a terrible mistake and that this dinosaur wasn’t actually Cas, that it was actually going to eat him. And then eat Sam. Oh god, a dinosaur was going to eat them.

            He thought all of these things until Castiel, dinosaur of the lord, licked him in the face.

            “God, shit, dammit.” He yelped and jolted to his feet like he had just been electrocuted. All thoughts of “oh hell, I’m going to get eaten” stopped and he found himself more preoccupied on getting dinosaur spit off his face.

            “You fucker!” he yelled loudly, which made Sam wake up in a lurch.

            “What, what?” He asked groggily as his hands scrambled for a knife. Then, of course, he realized the there was no danger, only his spastic brother and a dinosaur who looked entirely too proud of himself. “What’s going on?” he asked, a little afraid of the answer at this point.

            “Cas fucking licked me.” Dean practically screeched as he rubbed one of his extra shirts over his face. He was glaring at the dinosaur, and Cas just kept giving him a smug, toothy grin.

            That bastard.

            “Don’t look so pleased with yourself, you giant lizard chicken.” He growled as frighteningly as he could. Cas didn’t seem to get it though, because he just made a chuffing sound that sounded suspiciously like a laugh. Then he heard a very human chuckle and, oh god, his brother was laughing at him too now.

            Dean stepped away from the pair. A traitor dino was one thing, but combine it with a traitor brother and you have a recipe for disaster. He went over to the bag he had packed yesterday and pulled out a water bottle and one of the packages of beef jerky he had stuck in there. He chewed on the meat, pointedly ignoring the two behind him.

            He stared off into the jungle surrounding them, absently seeing if he could pick out any shapes in the brush. The forest was just as intimidating in the day as it was in the night. It was just a different kind of intimidation, the kind where you knew exactly what was going to eat you before it did.

            Speaking about things that liked to eat Winchesters… he heard Cas coming up behind him. The raptor’s footsteps still sounded deadly against the forest, the first initial crush of a footstep and then the heavy thump of the curled toe claw against the floor. Dean couldn’t deny the primitive shiver that went up his spine when he heard that noise coming up directly behind him. Cas came close and Dean felt a gentle nudge to his back, followed by some quiet warbles.

            He turned and saw that Cas had a big dino frown written on his scaly features. When he met the hunter’s eyes, he gave him an unhappy trill that sounded like a busted teapot.

            Dean couldn’t help the small smile that came to his lips. The raptor looked like a deadly scolded puppy. “No, Cas, I’m not really mad at you.” He said, knowing that that was what Cas was probably worrying his feathery ass over.

            The dinosaur immediately perked. He rose his head back to its full height and his feathers fluffed in a way that Dean could only call cute. (When did he get to the point in his life where seven-foot tall lizards were cute?)

            Cas’ unhappy trill turned quickly into a happy one and then the dinosaur was suddenly nudging him back to where his brother was sitting.

            “Yeah, yeah, I’m going. I’m going.” Dean mumbled as he tried to swat away the dino snout that was manhandling him. It made him feel like he was an unruly kitten and that Cas was just holding back from picking him up by his shirt and carrying him back to the rest of the litter (Sam). His swats weren’t very effective, though, and only made Cas stubbornly push at his back more firmly until he was practically stumbling over himself.

            He settled back down next to his brother who was eating yet another granola bar. How many of those damn things did Sammy have? Why couldn’t he have thought about getting actual real food if he had enough time to get about a million granola bars.

            “So,” Sammy said through a mouthful of granola, chewing it like a friggin moose “what do we do next?”

            “I don’t know. Find civilization, I guess. We don’t exactly have the tools to go all Survivorman.” Dean said, silently watching Cas. The angel had plopped himself back onto the ground and protectively shaped himself into Cretaceous croissant around the brothers. Once settled he let out a heavy sigh and let both of them lean back against him.

            Sam was silent for a few moments and then spoke hesitantly. “How much food and water do you have?”

            Dean’s stomach sunk at all the implications of that statement. Cas the dinosaur or not, if they didn’t find food or water quickly they would waste away in this jungle.

            “Not much,” he answered Sam, “I got another two packs of beef jerky, some trail mix and a pack of peanuts. Oh, and this bottle of water.” He said and he held up the half empty water bottle he had just been drinking from.

            Sam nodded, but he didn’t look happy. “Yeah, I don’t got much more. We’re gonna need to find resources and quick.”

            Dean nodded, agreeing with his brother, and nudged Cas with his shoulder. The dinosaur was preening through the feathers on his back and picking at the bandages.

            “Hey,” Dean scolded, “don’t pick at that.” Cas’ head shot up and he desperately tried to look like he wasn’t just messing with the bandages. Dean shot him an unimpressed look and Cas tried to look as innocent as a killing machine could. It wasn’t working. “Pay attention, you big lizard, we’re trying to figure out how to not starve over here.”

            Cas rolled his reptilian eyes and gave Dean a sassy blink. The hunter was surprised about how much emotion Cas could portray with his scaly face and how easily he was able to tell Dean that he wasn’t amused with him. Figures.

            “Yeah, yeah. I’m an ass.” He said sarcastically when the dino huffed at him. “But we’re not going to be able to do this alone, Cas. We need to get out of this jungle and quick.”

            Cas stared at him, those deep blue pools seeming to dig into his soul for way too long (but hell what else was new) before he rose to his full height. The movement nudged the brothers off of him, and they also scrambled to their feet as the raptor stood. The angel shook, little bits of morning dew flying off his feathers, before he began moving towards the denser brush. He was about to dip into it, but right before he looked over his shoulder and motioned for the brothers to come along.

            “I guess we’re going then.” Said Sam as he quickly packed up his backpack and went to follow Cas. Dean also got all of his stuff together (neither of them really had much out to begin with) and together they went into the jungle.

           

            As it turns out, trekking through the wilderness with a seven-foot tall lizard-bird of doom is much like having to hike through it without one. The plants were still complete assholes and did everything in their power to make him trip. The trees were still annoyingly dense to walk around. The bugs were still chowing down on him like he was a freaking turkey on Thanksgiving. And to make things worse, about three hours ago Dean had stepped into a bitch of a puddle, so now every time he took a step there was an embarrassingly loud squeak to announce his presence.

            So yeah, everything was still so fucking peachy.

            It was marginally better though. Yeah, the jungle seemed to be trying to torture Dean in every way it could, but at least he didn’t have to worry about being eaten by it. He was sure that their angelic dinosaur could take down anything that wanted a piece of his ass and, he had to admit, that was pretty fucking great.

            Eventually, after more hiking than Dean ever wanted to do, the forest began to thin and slowly gave way to a grassy field. He could have kissed the ground with how relieved he felt about being out of the jungle. He didn’t even really realize how claustrophobic the place had made him until he got back into the open air again.

            He laughed out loud, a huge grin plastered on his face. “Look at us, Sammy, we’re moving up in the world.” He said as he spread his arms wide, surveying his kingdom of new found grass.

            Sam looked decidedly less impressed and gave Dean one of his bitchfaces. Whatever, Sam never appreciates the true luxuries of life. Cas did, though. He was an animal right now, and animals loved things like grass and shit, right? He looked over to Cas, though, and saw a matching bitchface on him too.

            “Come on, you guys, you’re really killing the ‘we survived the jungle’ vibe.” He said with a whine. Neither looked any more amused and Cas just kept moving through the field, ignoring Dean’s offended scoffs and mumbles. The dinosaur stalked past him, only pausing momentarily to give the hunter a little nudge with his side before continuing on. Dean watched Cas move through the grass, a fluid body in the billowing field, and imagined that dozens of National Geographic writers would be shitting themselves to see something like that.

            “It’s pretty cool, right?” said Sam from his side, breaking Dean out of his thoughts. Sam had this huge, nerdy grin on his face as he watched Cas languidly prowl. He must have been having the same thoughts as Dean, right then.

            Dean couldn’t help the smile that rose to his face. “Yeah,” he said, “It’s kinda amazing.” And it was, because who would have ever thought that Dean Winchester would be best friends with an ass kicking angel who also can be a dinosaur of the lord.

            Suddenly, Cas barked from the middle of the field. He had straightened up to his full height and was staring at the boys from over the grass. He cocked an eyebrow (do dinosaurs even have eyebrows?), probably wondering what was taking them so long. Dean huffed and then steadily began making his way through the grass with Sam close behind.


	4. Dinosaur Training Among Other Things

       They went on like this for another two or so hours (neither of them knew for sure. Sam was trying to tell the time by using the sun and some kind of ‘ancient Mayan practice that has served humanity for millennium’. Dean thinks that he’s just pulling numbers out of his ass.). There were no signs of civilization anywhere, not one road, building or even sign of human civilization anywhere. It reminded Dean of the times where he and Sam would drive out into the vast barren prairieland of middle America. Sometimes they wouldn’t even try to get to a hotel, they would just unpack their sleeping bags and stretch out under an impossibly huge night sky. But even in those times, though, there was always the road, which acted as a physical connection back to humanity. Now without the highway, without any evidence that there were even more humans in the world other than him and Sam, Dean felt a profound sense of loneliness rising up from the pit of the stomach.

        Maybe that’s why when they saw the truck, it came as such a shock. The rose from a corner of the grassy field, coming out of the surrounding forest like a bullet. The sound of the engine ripped through the previously quiet afternoon, tearing at the natural silence like a mechanic scream. And then, behind it, another truck. This one was larger and looked more like one of those trucks that you rented to move. Its engine was lower rumbling after the leading car. And then as quickly as they had come, the engines shut off and people began pouring out of the vehicles.

        At first, Dean was filled with joy because fucking finally, they weren’t going to be in this damn forest forever. This must be what castaways feel like when a ship finally comes into their horizon. He lifted his hand and began to wave frantically as the people unloaded something from the back of their trucks.

        “Look, Sammy!” he shouted, unable to fully keep the laugh out of his voice (but who the hell cared? He was happy that they were going to have running water again!) “We’re saved.”

        He glanced over at Sam, expecting to see a matching look of relief, only to see that Sam was staring warily at the cars. He kept glancing between the truck and Cas. His face growing more uncomfortable by the moment. What?

        Dean whipped around this time narrowing his eyes at the truck and paying closer attention to what exactly they were unloading from the vehicle. There were three people all in what seemed like matching uniforms. They scurried hurriedly around the car, and, Dean realized, were preparing their weapons.

        Oh shit. The thought hit Dean like a freight train as he realized that his best friend was still a vicious looking raptor that had teeth the length of Dean’s hand.

        “No!” he shouted, waving his arms even more wildly trying to get the people to pay attention to him. “No, stop, he’s not going to hurt-” he was cut off as a bullet whizzed past him and landed with a thud in Cas’ shoulder.

         Everything moved in slow motion as Dean turned around only to see Cas letting out a bone chilling screech and crumpling in a heap to the ground. In one second, the powerful animal was reduced to a whimpering heap.

         No, no, no. The word kept playing endless in his head as his brain desperately tried to make sense of what was happening. Because Cas couldn’t be shot. He was an angel. He was immensely strong and powerful. He was curled up on the ground with blood endlessly oozing out of his shoulder.

         Dean didn’t even realize that he had screamed until his throat began to hurt.

         Sam immediately went into motion and crouched by Cas’ head trying to keep him conscious. He shushed the angel’s pained whimpering and promised him that he was going to be alright.

         Out of the corner of his eye, Dean saw a glint and he turned back around to see that the uniformed people were slowly closing in on them. Dean took out his knife (the only weapon he had right now) and brandished it in front of him.

        “Back off, you dickwads.” He growled at the nearest person, “don’t you dare shoot him again.” Years of being a hunter, helped him keep the shake out of his voice, but didn’t make him feel any more confident. He had to protect Cas and the thought steeled him.

        “Sir, please step away from the dinosaur. This situation is highly dangerous.”

        “Like hell, I’m going to do that.” He muttered and only positioned himself more in front of Cas. Behind him the dinosaur let out a pained grunt, which must have been Sam digging the bullet out of Cas’ shoulder. Dean glanced back at the noise and as he was distracted, the grunts took another step forward. He whipped back around, gripping the knife, prepared to stab someone if that’s what it came too.

        “Sir, please-” the uniformed woman began again, but Dean cut her off.

        “No, you listen to me. If you take another shot at my raptor, I’m going to fuck you up so bad that your mother won’t recognize you.” He growled. The seriousness of his threat must have struck a chord because he saw the grunts begin to look questioningly at their superior. She was eyeing him thoughtfully and Dean could see her silently make up her mind.

         She raised a hand in a cease motion and the uniformed men lowered their guns, but didn’t release them completely. They still looked nervously at the downed dino, half expecting Cas to rear up and tear their heads off. Dean was pretty sure that he would have let Cas do it too.

         The women in front of the group straightened, drawing Dean’s attention away from her trigger-happy friends. She leveled him with the intensity of her stare and Dean felt himself being studied like he was some kind of science experiment.

        “Who are you?” She said icily. An intense glare was set into her delicate face and the wind whipped at her blonde hair. She was pretty and, normally, she would have been exactly type Dean would try to pick up in a bar. Right now, though, she looked like she would much rather stab him with a dull knife.

        “What’s it to you?” he snapped back. It was mostly to stall, though. He needed a cover story, some kind of reason why he and his brother were trekking across the Amazon with a not-so-extinct dinosaur. Something that wouldn’t get all of them killed or hauled off to a laboratory. His mind frantically scrambled to come up with something, but everything was a huge blank.

         The gun lady scowled in annoyance. “Considering that I am the head of park security and you are wandering around in a guest area with a loose Utahraptor, I would say that it is completely my business to know who you are.” She practically snarled and brought her gun up. Dean tensed, ready to attack, but Sam’s voice cut across the potential battlefield.

        “Wait, stop. The raptor isn’t dangerous. He won’t hurt anyone.” He said firmly, and he rose to his feet. Behind him, Cas also struggled into a standing position, which made the uniformed men aim at Cas.

         “Stay down men.” The women said and the men silently did so. She turned her glare to Sam, lot losing an ounce of heat. “Why should I have any reason to believe you?”

          Dean opened his mouth to bark an insult, but it died in his throat when Sam shot him a knowing look. He turned back to the woman and tried to look as innocent and believable as possible.

         “We’re graduate students from Stanford University and we created Castiel.” Sam said as he motioned between him and Dean and then finally to their raptor. The woman still didn’t look convinced so Sam barreled on with his explanation. “We wanted to recreate what the scientists at Jurassic World were able to do and, as you can see, we were successful. I’m Sam and I’m part of the genetic engineering program. I created Cas. That’s my brother, Dean, he’s an animal behavior specialist and he raised and trained Cas.”

          The woman calculatedly looked between the brothers until her gaze settled on Dean. “He said you had the thing trained.” She questioned, one of her light eyebrows raised in skepticism. Dean felt a tick in his jaw at Cas being called a “thing”, but nodded nonetheless.

         “Well, get on. Let’s see what you’ve taught it.” She said, looking expectantly between Dean and Castiel. Dean snorted and practically stomped over to where Cas was standing.

           He raised a hand and gently touched the end of Cas’ nose. Now that he was closer, he could see that Cas was obviously in pain. His great chest was taking labored breaths and blood was oozing from the bullet hole and his stiches. Damn, he was going to have to close those stitches back up and re-bandage Cas immediately.

      “Alright, buddy,” he sighed, taking Cas’ face in both of his hands. He met the dino’s deep ocean eyes and tried to give him a reassuring smile. “I know it hurts, but we’re gonna have to give this lady a bit of a show so she doesn’t fill us up with bullets, think you can do that?” he asked, even though at this point they didn’t really have a choice. It felt like the right to ask for Cas’ permission rather than just starting to bark orders at him like he was a dumb animal.

       Cas nodded his head just a bit and straightened up, towering over Dean. The hunter (and now apparently animal behavior specialist) walked away to put a few feet of distance between them and then raised a hand like he had seen trainers do at things like dolphin shows. Unfortunately, he had seen exactly zero dolphin shows in his life, so he didn’t really know where to go much more than that.

      “Uhh, Cas, sit.” He said uncertainly. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his brother give him a look that said _Dean, really?!_ And the military lady looked extremely unimpressed.

       Cas followed his instruction though, and gingerly folded himself to sit on the ground. He looked up at Dean for more directions.

      “Cas, up.” Dean said, moving his hand in an up motion and the dinosaur rose again.

     “Speak,” he said and the dinosaur looked puzzled. He tilted his head in bird-like confusion with his eyes narrowing. Then he gave Dean a little bark that would have to do for now.

      “Yeah, Cas, that’s great.” He assured the raptor and the dinosaur perked up at the praise. He swore that his tail even wagged a little bit.

      “Show us your wings.” He said and the raptor straightened to his full height. He rose his arms, letting his little winglets flare up. He even rose some of the feathers on his crest to make the movement even more dramatic.

       Dean smiled and motioned the raptor closer. Cas moved to Dean’s side and the hunter patted his head while telling him that he had done well. He turned back to the scary military lady.

       “Is that good enough for you?” he said sarcastically, not able to keep all the anger out of his voice. “He also knows ‘attack’ too, but I don’t think you want to tempt me with that one.” Next to him, he heard a low snarl come from Cas’ throat to punctuate the statement. The military lady suddenly looked less assured in herself and quickly flicked her eyes between him and the pissed off raptor that was leaning over him. Cas’ jaw was inches away from his face, filling the space right over his shoulder. When he flicked his eyes to the side, all he was met with was Cas’ bone-white teeth. He looked back to the woman and couldn’t help the vicious smile that rose to his face.

       “No, it will not come to that.” She said firmly, but Dean could still pick up on the nervousness in her eyes. “You’ve proven yourselves.”

        She quieted and Dean watched her trying to decide what to do with them. She looked a lot at Castiel, which made Dean edge more in front of the dino as if he could possibly block the huge lizard from her sight.

       “You said you two were grad students?” She asked.

       “Yes,” Sam cut in and came close to Dean and Cas. He stood on the raptor’s other side and when he came close Cas leaned over to nudge him with his nose in greeting. Sam gave him a little smile and patted the dinosaur.

       “How can you do that?” The lady asked suddenly, drawing all their attentions again.

  “Do what?” Dean questioned. Cas leaned up next to him again and settled his massive head on Dean’s shoulder. Absently, Dean raised a hand to run his fingers over the feathers, but still kept his gaze firmly locked on the commander.

       “That.” She gestured to Cas, “Making the raptor act like a puppy dog.”

        Dean couldn’t help a little chuckle. “I guess you can say that me and Cas here, have a profound bond. Anyways, he’s family so we trust him.” He said and Cas purred a little at those words. Yeah, raptors were definitely just prehistoric housecats.

        The commander didn’t look at that impressed with the answer, but accepted it anyways. She turned around and had her men stand fully down and put the scary looking guns back into the truck.

“You’re coming with us back to base camp.” She snapped and began to walk to one of the trucks.

 


	5. Treks and Trucks

“Wait, what?” Sam questioned, but no one answered. Both brothers were left blinking as the commander began shouting orders and the men responded by moving into different tasks. Even Cas the dinosaur managed to look confused.

The lady came back soon holding some kind of leather thing and threw it at Dean’s feet. It landed with a puff of dirt and he made no movement to lift it off the ground.

“Muzzle up your raptor and put it in the back of a truck.” She snapped in a way that made Dean’s hackles rise.

“Wait a minute, lady,” he growled, “I’m not muzzling anyone and I’m definitely not getting into your truck without you telling us where the hell we’re going.”

“I’m taking you back to Headquarters. I assume that’s why you came to Jurassic World in the first place.” She spat. “And you have to muzzle your dinosaur. I know that for some insane reason you’re comfortable around it, but I’m not risking my men. So it’s either you muzzle the damn thing, or I have one of my guys shoot it full of tranqs. You should be happy that I’m even giving you the damn choice.” She growled, squaring up to Dean as she spoke. She was a good head shorter than him, but the fury in her eyes more than made up for it. She was a fighter, he had to give her that, and he could tell she was an evenly matched opponent for him.

Dean was ready to snap back, words raring in his throat. But then he saw one of the men raise his gun and point it at Cas, ready in case a fight broke out. Suddenly, a bloody vision of how this could all turn flashed through his mind and, unhappily, he submitted. He grumbled and grabbed the muzzle off the ground.

He turned around back to the raptor and guilt puddled in his stomach. Cas was looking at him in forlorn puppy-dog eyes that could rival Sam’s. With a burble of tweets, he leaned down to Dean and nudged him gently.

“I’m sorry, Cas, but I’m not sure what else we can do” he said as he took Cas’ head in between his hands. The dinosaur managed to look even sadder and it sent a stab of pain straight to Dean’s chest. “Look, I promise the moment she lets us we will have it off of you, alright?” He whispered to Cas and the raptor nodded before dipping his head so Dean could loop the muzzle over his jaws.

He tightened it so it sat snugly on Cas’ face, but not so tight that it became painful. Behind it, Cas made a mournful sounding little warble that damn near broke Dean’s heart and made him feel like a particularly shitty piece of shit for doing this to someone, let alone his best friend. He clipped the lead to the muzzle and held it in his hand.

He took another look at Castiel and immediately saw how much smaller the angel looked in the muzzle. He looked like a damn animal and that made Dean bristle because Cas didn’t deserve that. He also noticed how useless the muzzle actually was. Yeah, the raptor’s jaws were kept closed, but that wasn’t going to help anyone if he decided to use his claws. Those things could rip someone open in seconds, especially the huge toe claw that Cas was delicately keeping lifted from the ground. Weirdly enough, that gave the hunter comfort because at least he knew that Cas could defend himself if he had to.

The lady came forward like she was going to take the rope from Dean, but he stopped her with a hard glare.

“Like hell, I’m going to let you touch him.” He spat and his anger was enough to make her back off.

She didn’t look happy about it but she ordered the hunters to the other truck and emptied it of her men. Cas, Dean and Sam all began moving towards the vehicle. The soldiers were obviously anxious. The kept their guns loaded and ready and none of the turned their backs to the raptor. Some of them even lifted their weapons, pointing it directly at Cas’ face, which made him flinch into Dean’s side. 

“Hey, Lady” he growled, “Tell your boys to keep their toys away from him.”

She narrowed her eyes. “No. I’m not going to tell them to drop their weapons. That thing you got on a leash is dangerous and I swear if your raptor hurts any of my men, I’m going to put bullets in you faster than you can blink.”

Dean was about to snap something back, but as he opened his mouth he caught a little bit of anxiety in her eye. She’s scared, he realized and his conscious brought up how he felt when he first saw Cas coming out of the jungle brush.

“Fine.” He scoffed and he led Cas away from the soldiers, giving them wide berth. They got to the back of the truck and he told Cas to get inside. The raptor stepped up, the metal screeching with his claws slid across the floor. Once fully in, he settled and curled up, careful to keep his long tail out of where it could catch on the door. 

Dean turned back to his brother who had been keeping vigilance over them and making sure none of the trigger-happy goons came too close. One of the men came over to try to lift himself into the driver’s seat of the truck, but both of them glared so hard at him he backed away quickly.

“We don’t need one of your goons. We know how to handle a car.” Dean said with an edge and the commander lady just sighed. He could easily see she was getting tired of his shit and commanded them to follow the other vehicles. Of course, not after a warning that if they tried to run, she would have them shot on sight.

Dean snorted at that and turned towards his brother.

“Sam, why don’t you drive? I’m going to stay back here and start patching Cas up.”

Sam nodded and hopped into the driver’s seat, while Dean climbed in through the back.

Cas lifted his head when Dean came in and gave him a confused little warble.

“Heya, Cas, I’m gonna ride back in here with you.” He said in response, as he looked around the truck cabin. His eyes finally landed on a first-aid kit that he thought might be in there.

The raptor responded with a happier sounding chirp (damn Dean was going to be a bird-whisperer after this) and scooted to the side so the hunter had more room. Dean chuckled at that, Cas even like this he was still trying to put Dean before himself. 

“Relax, Cas” Dean said as he sat down. He brushed a hand over the crest feathers on Cas’ head and felt the dinosaur lean into it. He stroked around the muzzle straps and continued down the angel’s neck. He came in close to the raptor and began to examine what was left of the bandages he had put on yesterday. They were strangled, bloody and definitely not doing what they were supposed to do, especially with Cas’ new bullet hole slowly oozing.

Dean carefully began to take off the bandage, exposing the open wound underneath. Cas made a small sound, and Dean hushed him. “It’s okay, Cas, you’re okay. It’s okay.”

He whispered while beginning to inspect the wound, luckily it didn’t look infected so he just decided to sanitize it and re-bandage it.

“You know, we really need to stop meeting with stabbing each other.” He said as put a fresh set of gauze on the now clean wound. Cas was resting his head on the floor of the truck and hummed a respond that the hunter took as agreement. Dean was just happy that Cas had never greeted him with a stabbing. He probably wouldn’t have fared as well as the angel.

Dean moved on to the bullet hole and patched that one up too. He leaned back to look at his work, before deciding that it was good and settled on the ground next to Cas’ head. The raptor hummed in response and nosed at Dean’s leg. The hunter stared into the angel’s deep eyes. They were strange to see so reptilian, but the same abysmal blue color that Dean could get lost in. 

Unfortunely, though, they were now framed by that hideous muzzle. Dean grimaced when he focused on it and Cas flinched back at the suddenly ugly look.

Dean chuckled. “No, Cas, I wasn’t glaring at you. I was looking at this thing.” He said as he slid his fingers over the leather straps. He paused and flicked his eyes over towards the front of the truck. 

“Hey, Sam.” He yelled.

“Yeah?” Sam responded, slightly muffled by the truck wall.

“Does it look like we’re there yet?”

“Uhh, no. We’re still in the middle of the jungle.”

“Okay, can you tell me when it looks like we’re there? I can’t see anything from back here.”

“Sure.”

Dean grinned and turned back to raptor who was staring at him like a curious bird. He burbled out a questioning sound and tilted his head.

“Calm down, Tweety. Let’s get this muzzle off of you. We can slip it back on when we get closer to where the hell the scary lady’s taking us.”

Cas obviously agreed if the happy tweeting was anything to go off of. Dean slipped his hands over Cas’ head and started unbuckling the straps. The dino was so excited he could hardly keep still and Dean had to ask him twice to stop moving so he could take the thing off.  

Once he got it, he practically threw it away from them and it hit against the truck wall with a heavy smack. Cas even gave it a little growl for good measure. 

“Guys?” Sam called back to them. “Everything good?”

“Yeah, yeah, were fine.” Dean answered through a grin. “Cas hasn’t eaten me yet.”

“I can’t believe it.” Sam replied, totally deadpan.

Dean chuckled and turned back to the angelic lizard, who was using his claws on his winglets to comb through his feather crest. He looked like a grooming cat, using his paw to preen through his feathers where his teeth couldn’t reach. Vaguely, Dean wondered whether they should get him an oversized bird bath, though maybe a kiddie pool would work. 

Just as Dean was opening his mouth to propose this idea, the truck suddenly sounded with an inhuman screech. It rang harshly though the space, shrill and blood-curding. Dean could feel himself pale and he couldn’t help moving a little closer to Cas. The sound was just so wrong, so unnatural and he could help the way it made it frayed his instincts.

Eventually it toned down and ran into the distance, like whatever was making it was moving further away. 

“Sammy?” Dean called to his brother. “What was that?”

“I, I,” his voice was wrung with disbelief. “I think it was a pterodactyl. It flew over us. It’s gone now”

“Oh, okay, good” he said. Great another dinosaur, he thought to himself, but he was quickly realizing that he was probably going to be seeing a lot of dinosaurs. Not that that wasn’t hella cool, because who didn’t like dinosaurs as a kid, but his excitement was tinged with the worry or confusion about why he even was here.

“Cas,” he said, drawing the angel out of his preening. He looked at Dean with his two strange reptilian eyes, so familiar in colour, but foreign in everything else. Despite that though, he could still see Cas in them and that filled him with so much relief. “you dropped us here for a reason, right?”  The dino quickly nodded his head up and down, confirming Dean’s statement.

“Does it have to do with that primordial key you were talking about earlier?” The angel nodded again. “so there’s a case here and we have to find it.” He said, more of a statement than a question.

Cas kept nodding his head, though, and even gave him an encouraging little coo. 

“Okay, got it. We’ll figure this out and then we’ll get you back into your right shape and we’ll all go home.” Dean said, making a loose plan with himself. Even he could see that there were some obvious flaws in it, but at least it was a starting place. 

Looks like it was two hunters and a death chicken against whatever the hell a primordial key is.

He’s had worse odds.


	6. Into the Belly of the Beast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all, thank you for coming this far and for sticking with this story so much. As most things do, this started as a little crack fic and now it's sort of growing a plot of it's own. That being said, I'm probably not going to be updating this until after Christmas because I want to focus my attention on a Christmas themed fic I'm coming out with later in December. Thanks for the continued support and happy reading!!

After what seemed like an hour by Dean’s guess. Sam was calling back to them to tell them that they were reaching their destination. The hunter groaned as he lifted himself off the dinosaur that he had been dozing against. Cas let out a huge yawn, opening his mouth as wide as it would go and inadvertently showing Dean every one of his terrifying teeth. And then, with a crack, those jaws snapped back into place as efficient and deadly as a bear trap.  Dean couldn’t help the way his eyes popped open wide at the movement or the way his pulse picked up just a little bit. When Cas’ eyes focused on him again, he fought to put his face back into something more neutral. He must have failed terribly though, because Cas began giving him a burble of worried tweets that only made Dean feel worse about freaking out over his best friend’s teeth.

He couldn’t help it though. Logically, he knew that the dinosaur was just Cas and Cas would never ever hurt him. But instinctually, his brain was telling him to _run now you idiot!_ Or at least grab a gun to defend himself. Most of the time, he was able to ignore it, but every once in a while, the instinct caught him and he reacted. Unfortunately, this only left Cas upset and with Dean trying to comfort a seven-foot lizard chicken who was cooing like a damn cuckoo clock.

“Cas, calm down.” Dean said over Cas’ bird sounds. “I can’t understand you. I don’t know what you’re trying to tell me.” He sighed and Cas quieted down. The dinosaur had an unreadable look on his face (or maybe Dean couldn’t read dino face as well as he thought he could) and didn’t meet the hunter’s eyes. _Shit_ Dean thought to himself because now Cas looked like a dejected puppy. He didn’t know what to say, so he just ran a hand through the feathers along Cas’ spine in what he hoped was a comforting motion.

Unexpectantly, the truck hit a bump which would have sent Dean sliding if he hadn’t held on to his dinosaur. Dean complained out loud and Sam shouted back a quick, embarrassed apology. Dean grumbled half-hearted and turned back to face Cas. Suddenly, he remembered why he had woken up in the first place.

“Sam says we’re almost there.” He whispered, even though he wasn’t quite sure why he was keeping his voice low. “I’m sorry but I’m going to have to put the muzzle back on.”

Cas growled softly, not at him, but at the offended piece of equipment that was laying in the truck corner. Dean sighed and placed a hand on Cas’ shoulder to try to settle him.

“Yeah, I know.” He said heavily, “I hate it too, but what choice do we have?” He leaned over, reaching for the muzzle and grasping the cold leather in his hand. The metal in the clasp practically burned into his skin and it made a small shudder go down his spine.

He leaned back, settling against Cas once more and using a hand to guide the dino’s jaw done closer to him. Suddenly, he was struck by how compliant Cas was being right now. If he had really wanted to, the angel easily could have been stubborn and immovable against Dean’s will. But here he was, turning his head by just a simple touch and following Dean into something he obviously didn’t want to do.

But it was always like that, wasn’t it? Dean leading Cas into something bad and, honestly, he had no idea why the angel ever followed.

Cas cooed like a dove and shook Dean out of his thoughts. The hunter blinked and focused on Cas’ reptilian eyes that were giving him a concerned look. The dino leaned forward at nudged his nose against Dean’s shoulder in a silent question. 

“I’m fine,” Dean muttered, even though he had a hard set his jaw. He began strapping the muzzle back onto Cas’ face, carefully pulling and placing the leather so it sat as comfortably as possible. 

“Is that alright?” he asked once he was done. The angel nodded, even though it was obvious he didn’t particularly like it, and grumbled petulantly. Dean couldn’t help a little chuckle at the way Cas’ feathers seemed to puff up in annoyance.

The things they go through to avoid getting shot. 

“You guys good?” Sam’s voice suddenly came through. Only then did Dean realise that their truck had come to a complete stop and was probably about to begin unloading.

“Yeah,” Dean called up, “let’s get this show on the road.”

The next few moments came in a flurry of sound and light. First it was noises coming all from around the truck and then it was the sudden burst of brightness that filled the truck when the back doors were open. Dean was left blinked and desperately regaining senses as shouts came at him from all directions. They were speaking at him rapidly, firing questions and expecting sudden answers while Dean could only reply with a “what?”. And, as the hunter was trying to figure everything out, he noticed that Cas was steadily being pulled away from he, led by a bunch of men yanking at his lead.

“Hey!” Dean yelled, instantly filled with rage that they could even think of stealing the raptor away from right under his nose. “What the hell do you think you’re going?” He growled lowly as he grabbed the lead right out of a man’s hand. The guy instantly backed off with his hands held up in a placating gesture.

“Calm down, dude, we’re not trying to kidnap him or anything. We want to bring him to a raptor enclosure, so we can get that dumb headgear off.”, the man said.

The comment filled Dean with a mix of emotions. He was happy that someone else was seeing the muzzle for as inane as it actually was (like really, the angel’s claws were just as terrifying as his teeth), but, on the other hand, he was still miffed at how the people were leading Cas around like a farm animal.

The man didn’t look threatening, though. He stood there awkwardly shifting under the heat of Dean’s glare. He was a gangly guy, built with skin and bones and not much else. He had a coffee stain on the front of shirt and thin wire glasses that looked like they were about to topple off. the bridge of his nose. Behind those glasses was a large pair of brown eyes that made the guy look not just unthreatening, but kind.

Something in those eyes made Dean relax and he lessened his glare. The squirrelly man instantly looked thankful for it and gave him a smile, slightly forced smile.

“Look, it was kinda shitty what we tried to do. But I know raptors, and I know they don’t do too good with crowds jumping out on them. We didn’t want again to get dangerous, you know?” He said in explanation, while flicking his eyes to an area away from the crowd.

Dean nodded because he did know and he wanted to get as far away from the guns as possible too. He turned around to see that a lot of the earlier commotion had died down and Sam was fielding all the questions about them and how they got here.

Thank god for Sammy, sometimes that kid could be a friggin saint.

“Okay, alright, that sound’s good” Dean said as he turned back to the other man. He sighed and he rubbed his hand up his face.  This day was so much longer than he wanted it to be and exhaustion was beginning to tug at his senses. “Lead the way to the raptor enclosures.”

The dude quickly introduced himself as Lloyd and shook Dean’s hand enthusiastically, hostility between them washed away. The hunter called his brother over and continued the introductions while Lloyd began leading them back into the depths of Jurassic World. Enclosures and metal doors rose around them, swallowing them whole into the park. It was such a stark difference from a few hours before when they were lost in the jungle and Dean thought he wasn’t going to be seeing civilization any time soon. Now he was faced with the steel and glass of what was arguably one of the greatest scientific achievements in modern times.

Despite that, though, the hunter couldn’t shake the subtle feeling that this biological park might have more teeth than a jungle could ever bare.

Ahead of them, Lloyd talked excited and explained that he was one of the keepers here, and that he specialized with the carnivorous dinosaurs. He was mainly head of their dietary needs, but had been gaining more responsibility for overall care and might be looking at a promotion soon if everything turned out well.

He was absolutely fascinated with Cas, asking endless questions about everything from Cas’ feather colour to his claw toe length. Surprisingly, Dean didn’t stumble over too many of these questions. He had to make up answers about ‘how they raised Cas’, but for the most part answered honestly about angel’s behaviour.

Eventually though, the question got more intense and suddenly Lloyd was asking about how the brothers had managed to ‘domesticate’ Cas. The gangly man, for all his awkwardness, was a sharp one and didn’t miss a beat when it came to how Cas acted around the Winchesters. He saw how Cas never showed aggression, how he gravitated towards Dean, how he eagerly sought out both of their approval. And he questioned exactly how the brothers managed to get a raptor, one of the fiercest predators in all of dinosaur time and a nearly perfect killing machine, to trail after them like a puppy.

“I don’t know,” Dean answered honestly, “Part of it is that we adopted him as family, but I think a lot of it was his choice. 

“His choice?” Lloyd repeated dumbly, clear he didn’t believe the hunter.

Dean just shrugged. “Look, all I can tell you is that Cas is really smart, like scary intelligent, and he chose us. We’re his family, and he’s ours. I don’t know how else to break that down. 

The keeper didn’t exactly seem happy with the answer, but saw that Dean probably wasn’t going to give him anything else. He narrowed his eyes and looked sharply between the hunters. Instantly, Dean felt himself tense and met Lloyd’s eyes steadily. Innocent looks aside, he knew this guy was smarter than him (he would have to be to be climbing the ranks at Jurassic World) and he didn’t want him catching any wrong ideas.

Eventually, though, Lloyd relaxed and even looked a little sheepish. “Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to sound accusing. I’ll been told I can get a little, uhh, intense when I’m curious and trying to figure something else. Your system is just an interesting application of the raptor pack behaviour” He led them through another set of doors and then suddenly paused before turning to the hunters to ask a question.

“I probably should have asked this earlier, but has your raptor ever been introduced to another of his kind?” he said.

“No, he hasn’t.” Sam said, beating Dean. “Not exactly a ton of dinos running around America for him to meet.” He joked with an easy grin.

Lloyd smiled at that. “Yeah and thank god for that. We should probably separate him anyway because who knows how my girls will act. They can be a little… testy at times” he said with a shrug that clearly read ‘what are you gonna do?”.

With that, Lloyd opened an entrance to an empty exhibit. It was sparse, but clean with a few plants lining the walls and tightly packed dirt on the floor. Instead of a ceiling, there was a loose net that exposed the enclosure to the open air.

In one of the corners, a bright purple flip-flop was caught in the net.

Dean’s eye caught on it and he gave Lloyd a raised eyebrow. The keeper tracked his eyes and when he saw the shoe just groaned.

“Don’t ask. We’ve been trying to get that thing down for months. It’s become a running joke now.”

Sam laughed and Dean also chuckled. Cas looked up at the flip flop and tilted his head in confusion. It was obvious that he failed to see what was so humourous about a wayward piece of footwear. He cooed at Dean and the hunter waved him off instead of trying to explain. The dinosaur huffed and settled behind him.

“Well, shoe or no shoe, this is going to be your raptor’s home for however long you’re here for. Go on, lead him in. I’m going to go and put in a request for a doctor to take care of that gash on his shoulder. After you’re done here, come back out and I’ll show you the rest of the labs.”

Sam and Dean nodded at that and Lloyd left them in the exhibit to go and press buttons on what looked like a glorified iPad. Dean sighed and turned to his brother with an eyebrow raised. What were they going to do now?

Sam shrugged, obviously also unsure of what was going to happen next. “I guess we just keep winging it until we have a better idea.” He said, though, he didn’t sound comfortable in the answer. Dean agreed, but it didn’t do anything to help the growing sense of unease that was turning in his stomach.

“Okay, Cas” he said finally turning back to the raptor who had been watching the two brothers very closely. He perked up at Dean’s voice and looked him in the eyes. Dean reached up and began to unbuckle the muzzle from Cas’ face. The raptor made happy dino noises when it came off and gave Dean an appreciative nudge in the shoulder.

Dean chuckled and pushed Cas’ head away. “We’re going go with that keeper, you good here for a couple hours?”

Dean didn’t like the situation, but they couldn’t exactly hide Cas and he dearly hoped that Lloyd’s promise that Cas wouldn’t be hurt wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t as if Cas was defenseless either. He was smart and had a wicked set of teeth and claws, just in case. Dean hoped that was enough, if anything went south.

Cas agreed with a nod and gave Dean another head nudge. Then he turned to Sam and also gave him a push in the shoulder. Sam grinned and promised the angel that they would say safe and he would keep Dean out of trouble. Cas made a dino laugh and then turned away to explore his enclosure.

With that, Dean and Sam went out to where the keeper, and the rest of Jurassic World, were waiting.


End file.
